They don't care what happens in the small towns, or anything south of the Bombay Hills. Everyone down south knows that.
But a city that is expanding as rapidly as Auckland has to get its population from somewhere, and despite the fervent wishes of morons and racists everywhere, it's not all international immigration. As the biggest city in the country, Auckland attracts a lot of people from all over the country, brought there by the bright lights and opportunities.
People who have deep, long family ties to Auckland can find themselves outnumbered by internal migrants from Timaru, Feilding and Whakatāne when they are in a gathering of friends or colleagues in the big city. Yeah, the housing market is a fucking nightmare and the traffic is getting worse and worse every month, but Auckland has the brightest lights in the country, and anybody hungry for opportunity is going to be drawn to that like an idiot moth.
This can be clearly seen in the big national-scale newsrooms in Auckland -TVNZ, Newshub, the Herald, Stuff, RNZ and NBR aren't packed out with Aucklanders worried only by Auckland problems - they're full of people from all over the country.
And just because they've embraced the JAFA lifestyle doesn't mean they've forgotten where they come from, and they don't just remember it when their local team comes to play at Eden Park. We've all got our roots somewhere and we all care about them.
Which means those complaints about the short-sightedness of Auckland-based newsrooms are a complete load of dogs bollocks. The news organisations might feature a lot more stories about Auckland, but that's because it's a third of the country's population, and yes, another story about the terrible traffic snarl-ups is going to affect a shitload of people and is always going to get more attention than a 10-minute traffic jam at a Dunedin intersection.
(Although it's worth noting that online stories about the horrors of Auckland traffic actually pick up a hell of a lot of their audience from outside the big city. They always do well online because Aucklanders want to know if they're getting home tonight, and because non-Aucklanders like to read those stories and feel smug about their nine-minute commute to work).
These people do give a shit about the state of the rivers in Canterbury, or the latest shenanigans at the Horowhenua council. Every single story might not always make it onto the nationwide bulletin, but these things aren't just forgotten, and all the big news outlets do substantial stories about hyper-local issues all the time.
All those Auckland media people might be wankers, but they are still giving national attention to fine work already done by their colleagues at local papers and radio stations, backing up the local journos (who are doing great work) and giving their concerns and crusades a national platform.
Just because they live in the big city, doesn't mean they don't still care about the small towns.
- Margaret Tempest
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